Recalling courage of St. Augustine Four

JoeAnn Anderson, Audrey Nell Edwards and Samuel White sit in the front pew of the First Baptist Church in St. Augustine in 2004 during a ceremony in their honor recognizing their part in the city's civil right movement. Anderson, Edwards, White and the deceased Willie Carl Singleton where jailed as teenagers in the 1963 for taking part in civil rights demonstrations. By PETER WILLOTT, peter.willott@staugustinerecord.com

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When nine black teens and seven black juveniles walked into Woolworth’s on King Street 50 years ago today, they had no idea that ordering at the lunch counter would send them to jail for six months.

All the children were arrested by St. Augustine Police.

County Judge Charles Mathis Jr. ordered the seven “delinquent children” — in other words, the juveniles — to spend the night in jail because the parents would not promise to keep them from further demonstrations.

Historian David R. Colburn, author of “Racial Change & Community Crisis: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877-1980,” wrote that the parents of three children agreed to keep their children from participating. They were released.

Five days later, four of the demonstrators — Audrey Nell Edwards, JoeAnn Anderson, Willie Carl Singleton and Samuel White — decided on their own to refuse the judge’s offer and remain in jail.

Gwendolyn Duncan, president emeritus of ACCORD, Inc., said Thursday that the only student who escaped arrest was Don Edwards, who “slipped past the arresting officer and ran home, later saying he was more afraid of his parents then the police.”

ACCORD, established in 2002, stands for the Anniversary to Commemorate the Civil Rights Demonstrations.

Duncan said, “Many of the students spent weeks in jail but were checked out by their parents. The girls were sent to reform school: Lowell Correctional Facility for Girls (north of Ocala) and the boys (to the Florida Industrial School for Boys) in Marianna. The courage of these teens and their mothers was extraordinary.”

St. Augustine historian David Nolan said Thursday that the story of the children going to jail made headlines and editorials in the Miami Herald and the New York Times.

“It embarrassed Florida to the world,” he said. “(The authorities) didn’t just put them away. They put them under the jail.”

Conditions in jail were harsh.

Florida Attorney General James Kynes asked Mathis to free the children. The judge reportedly said, “I’m not gonna release them.”

Colburn wrote that a legal labyrinth kept the young demonstrators in jail. The judge said he lost custody and the children remained incarcerated until Christmas.

Woolworth’s and McCrory’s eventually desegregated, as did the local Del Monico’s Restaurant, but blacks were still denied access to the public library, golf course and the city stadium, Colburn wrote.

Nolan said the St. Augustine Four had told their parents not to agree to the judge’s condition.

“The New York World’s Fair was going to open soon and there were threats of demonstrations at the Florida exhibit,” Nolan said. “(Former Brooklyn Dodger second-baseman) Jackie Robinson and his wife took Audrey Nell Edwards and JoeAnn Anderson to their home in Stamford, Conn., to recuperate and later they all went to the World’s Fair.”

Today, Willie Singleton and Sam White are dead. Edwards lives in St. Augustine and Anderson, now JoeAnn Anderson Ulmer, lives in Jacksonville.

Nolan said he is profoundly amazed at the impact that this one case has had on race relations.

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It's very apparent that Ssgt. Singleton had some real "salt"!
To go through the BS he did as a child in St. Augustine just because of the color of his skin, and then to enter into arguably the most challenging M.O.S. (11bS then, 18 series now) in the military. A truly awesome accomplishment for a black man back then. What an awesome story this mans life would tell! De Oppresso Liber
Drive on airborne!

Ok! ok! We get it. There used to be a civil war, there used to be a WWII and a bunch of Jews died. There used to be an Abe Lincoln and a Tom Jefferson, ok! There used to be a Vietnam war, there used to be pilgrims, and a tea party and 9/11, a fourth of July and this guy Jesus the Christ. This isn't the past anymore! Why doesn't everyone just forget history and stop talking about it! It makes me uncomfortable to think about it so stop ramming history down my throat! Get over the past!

As much as you neo-konservatives want to make America into an Iran-like talibangelist theocracy where everyone can buy their own fluffy kitten (but not too fluffy) and everyone looks like they belong on Leave It To Beaver (where the only black person was a maid), people who are well-educated aren't threatened by history and the thought of what their ancestors did in the past.